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Proposed 'form-based code' pilot in Boulder Junction moves forward

Code would aim to streamline the development review process for city and developer alike

By Alex Burness

Staff Writer

Posted:
04/14/2016 10:15:32 PM MDT

Updated:
04/14/2016 10:18:04 PM MDT

Sofia Leal walks her dog Bourbon around the Boulder Junction area on Thursday afternoon. The Boulder Planning Board voted unanimously to recommended the City Council's support of a "form-based code" that specifies preferred building designs and materials in the burgeoning Boulder Junction neighborhood. (Paul Aiken / Staff Photographer)

With the existing general consensus among Boulder officials that the city's site review process for new development is working neither for applicants nor governing boards, a proposed pilot program to simplify the system on both sides took another step toward approval on Thursday night.

The Boulder Planning Board voted unanimously to recommended the City Council's support of a "form-based code" that specifies preferred building designs and materials in the burgeoning Boulder Junction neighborhood. The council is expected to take the matter up next month, and potentially approve it as soon as June 21.

Though the code would only impact Boulder Junction — the 160-acre area around 30th and Pearl streets, heavy on new transit-oriented projects and higher-end housing — it carries with it potentially wide-reaching implications for the development review process throughout the rest of the city. If the code is approved by the City Council and ultimately deemed a success, Boulder could look to apply a similar strategy in other neighborhoods.

The thought behind such a code is that the city would give itself authority to demand particular design traits for projects brought forward by developers and architects. Boulder planners seek more simplicity and fewer materials, generally speaking, and have been frustrated in recent years by design guidelines that insist on greater visual interest than the city had seen from monolithic projects commonly approved in the 1980s.

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"When that idea gets applied to a building," Senior Planner Karl Guiler said Thursday, "it can end up having too many materials added and too many building modules ... and it starts to look really busy and asymmetrical."

Board member Leonard May noted that the perceived need for a form-based code grew out of the city being saddled with projects that it — and its residents — tend to view unfavorably. Chief among those, the board said, are the Solana luxury apartments in Boulder Junction and the former Daily Camera building downtown.

While the code would give developers less artistic freedom in Boulder Junction, the benefit on their end would be essentially guaranteed approval, assuming a proposal's compliance with a slew of rules that differ based on the type of project being floated. Categories include "main street storefront," "commercial storefront," "general building" and "row building."

Developers are often stymied after lengthy hearings that pick apart aspects of their projects deemed incongruent with Boulder's vision of community benefit. Height, setback and density are common sticking points.

Though the Planning Board and City Council retain the right to "call up" certain projects in the review process, there was some debate on Thursday night over whether the city would surrender too much authority with a form-based code, and potentially leave itself vulnerable to projects that are technically compliant, but otherwise unappealing.

Board member John Putnam offered a counterpoint to that anxiety.

"I have some concern with making it too discretionary," Putnam said, "because if we're setting people down this kind of detailed approached, and yet we still say no because we have some kind of discretionary provision ... then we've just created more obstacles and hurdles in a process that's already pretty complicated."

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